I do
by Yanghuntlove
Summary: A short one shot set in the silent moments on Meredith's staircase before Cristina and Owen get married.


**Author's note: I am still in my romanticised Cristina/Owen phase! This idea was inspired by a question I saw asked to Chief Hunt on Tumblur last night about what his thoughts were when he saw Cristina descending the stairs at their wedding. I re-watched the wedding scenes and this was what I wanted to write...hope you enjoy!xxxxx**

_**I do. **_

_**Two words that bind you to the one who has chosen you to love. A cardiac contract, entered into by two people who share one heartbeat. For this couple their shared journey had to pass through I know...I can't...I want...I need...to get here, to get to the destination of I do. **_

"She is gonna come down those stairs right?" My tone half mirthful, half anxious. The look on the face of her "person" ambiguous.

My heartbeat quickens. I turn my back to the staircase, unable to contemplate the reality of her two words being I don't. It would be the cruelest pain if her voice could not proclaim the two words, that in this present moment hold more importance than the three words we struggled to both conceal and express when we were lost and alone in the darkness.

Momentarily, I feel warmer, like I am being enveloped in the sweetest embrace. I turn around knowing my love is close by.

There she stands. My Cristina.

The woman who has invaded my soul, who fought for my life and her own at the betrayal of my hands. The woman who made me want to face my past so I would be able to share with her the future she truly deserved. The one woman, throughout my whole life, who demanded I do better, who implored me to want better for myself, who told me that going through a life existing wasn't really living and that it wasn't good enough and who believed that a worthy man lay beneath the damage.

As i drink in her physical portrait, my eyes smile, not just at her beauty but at the choice of dress colour. Red. The colour that defines her- passionate, fiery, hot blooded and tempered. To others she is a blue- icy, cold, robotic, detached. Admittedly, she did not give anything away easily. At times loving her was like being locked in the fiercest of battles, trying to fight through the barriers, some constructed by her and some by others, to get down to the truth of the feelings. She had placed her heart in the palm of my hands and I nearly broke it. She tore it away from me, to try and mend it and I thought I had lost her. But she came back to meet me half way, to give me her heart once again and dare me to not protect it.

Here tonight I have the chance to use the two worded vow that lovers before have declared to prove to her that her heart is safe with me. To promise her that I will never hesitate, retreat or surrender.

_"He's perfect." _

_Finally my person gets it. She gets the man I love. She sees him for what he makes me feel- happy, secure, whole, loved._

_At the top of the staircase I pause and let my brown eyes softly take him in as he turns towards the sound of my footsteps. _

_I am sure. _

_Sure he is the one for me. I am rooted in knowing the truth- that he is my one true soulmate, he is my partner, the person above all others who sees every side of me, even when I have fought to hide them from him for fear of his disappointment or rejection. He takes the good with the bad, the rights with the wrongs and accepts flaws as part of exactly what makes me me._

_He expects me to give him everything, to love him wholly and I marvel daily in the fact that I am able to do this freely, without ultimatums, prompt or coercion. I can do this because I want to. I can do this because to not do it feels unnatural. He has not changed me, as many have commented and presumed, he is simply the one who was built for me, completely as I am, to love. _

_As I meet the eyes of the man I am eager, willing and able to share my life with I muse on the fact that even if at times his words are few I know exactly what he is trying to tell me. His kiss tells me he craves me, his touch tells me he needs me, his smile tells me he loves me, his arms tell me he will protect me and his eyes, those blue oceans that lock my gaze, they tell me that he is mine and I am his. Not his possession but his equal. _

_I descend the stairs and wait. Wait for the other person, who had once partly defined who I was, to bid me farewell and wish me luck._

_**We wait for a heartbeat and take a breath.**_

_**Two smiles, one small nod of certainty, two interwoven hands and two steps forward towards the two words that will unlock the doors to one shared future. **_


End file.
